noun [from geography and Shakespeare, 2005] 1. A small forest of words in the great metropolis of Brooklyn 2. A collection of ruminations, photographs, and lists on topics including (but not limited to) books, writing, movies, television, theatre, current events, publishing, food, and nonsense 3. The blog of Cheryl Klein, reader, writer, children's books editor, and busy lady about town

Thursday, September 08, 2005

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." – Barbara Bush on the refugees in the Astrodome, Sept. 6, 2005

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers. – Thomas Pynchon

Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat. – John Morley

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. – Susan B. Anthony

As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. – Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. – Thomas Carlyle

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity. – Andre Gide

Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas? – Joseph Stalin

It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile. – Earl Warren

Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe . . . that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens. – Joseph Brodsky

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns ... instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. – George Orwell

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity. – George Bernard Shaw

Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it. -- Marian Anderson

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life – the sick, the needy and the handicapped. –Hubert Humphrey

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russell

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. – John Stuart Mill

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. – Maureen Dowd

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. – Noam Chomsky

Do not let the fact that things are not made for you, that conditions are not as they should be, stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway. – Robert Henri

There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book. – Saul Bellow

Action is the antidote to despair. – Joan Baez

You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty. – Jessica Mitford

4 comments:

Isn't it amazing? Isn't it just simply amazing how those idiots can't *not* embarrass themselves? It's like all their decades of bad karma are building to a head. I can only hope the release is centralized and only affects them when it finally comes to pass.

Certainly. The raw tape of her interview on NPR's "Marketplace" is here: http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/marketplace/2005/09/feature_barbarabush_sept5.ram; the quotation under discussion is at 2:45 on the 3:22 recording.

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Ten things I love: Books, trees, stars, roasted vegetables, "Singin' in the Rain," medium-tip blue rollerball pens, oatmeal, community, Scrabble, and my tall black boots.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own and should not be taken as those of the company for which I work.

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Text and most photos copyright (c) 2003, 2005-2012 by Cheryl B. Klein. All opinions expressed here are solely my own and should not be taken to reflect the opinions or official positions of the company for which I work. Thanks for reading!